By Stephanie Zacharek (season 1 VM review) noted below.good writeup. all of this may be redundant (alrdy on dlww) but am lkg at it again and want to put here for now. (can organize & delete if want to, later)

Tough-but-tender blondes who harbor deadly secrets; upstanding citizens with reputations to protect; kids from the other side of the tracks whose common decency always shines through: There are a million stories in the naked city, but there are a million more in high school. "Veronica Mars" has dug up some of the best ones.
Veronica is the perfect gumshoe loner, like a much prettier Bogey in jeans and a hoodie, and on last night's season finale, she finally unlocked the secret to the mystery that has tortured her for the better part of the school year...
But in keeping with the show's sharp, inquisitive sensibility, in addition to answering all our questions this season finale opened up some new ones: Veronica's mother (Corinne Bohrer), who left the family suddenly and mysteriously only to return after a stint in a rehab joint for alcoholics, apparently hasn't kicked her habit -- and while we all like to think, wistfully, that it's always better for families to remain intact, "Veronica Mars" has the guts to explore the idea that some families are better off splintered. We don't know what has happened to Logan (Jason Dohring), whom Veronica at one point suspected of having murdered Lilly; he was last seen teetering, drunk and depressed, on the edge of a bridge. (The additional complication is that he has fallen hard for Veronica, a turn of events that has given him some complicated, fascinating angles, as well as upped his charm.)

And in the episode's final scene, Veronica, having dropped into bed, exhausted (she's just saved her father's life), is awakened by a knock at the door. She opens it, and we can't see who's standing on the doorstep, but Veronica's face glows with a relieved, relaxed radiance we haven't seen in her for several episodes.
"I was hoping it would be you," she says. And just at that moment, the image of her standing in the doorway fades away from us, a gentle, soothing cliffhanger to keep us suspended until next season.

The answer to "Who killed Lilly Kane?" has turned out to be relatively clear-cut. But the whodunit structure of "Veronica Mars" is something of a red herring, because what really entangles us, and keeps us on the hook, are the bigger questions -- they're the key to the show's momentum, its sly sense of fun, and its emotional resonance.

Veronica is played by Bell with such eminently reasonable self-assurance that we're almost fooled into thinking we don't need to worry about her -- with her small frame, no-nonsense blond locks and dark, glittering eyes, she seems both sophisticated and mischievously elfin. Veronica can, and does, take care of everything: She tries hard to help out with the family finances, and she gives up her own hard-earned college savings to help her mother straighten out so she can come home. Each successive episode only confirms Veronica's perceived invincibility -- which is why it's so devastating when we see her confused or afraid, or when she's overcome with missing her mother.

Whodunit -- and much more - p2 Salon:
I'm glad Veronica Mars solved the mystery of Lilly Kane's murder in this season closer, but what meant more to me was the way Veronica crumpled into her father's arms when he told her that he now knew for sure that he was really her father. (Some previous infidelities on the part of Mrs. Mars had made his paternity questionable.) The moment, played by two superb actors with ardent emotion and, amazingly, zero sentimentality, is a small instance of television perfection. Veronica and her dad are in charge of saving no world but their own, and that's enough.